Freedom beats intrinsically within the heart of every human. Today we can hear the thumping rhythm in Iran, but our current President, Barack Obama, has turned a deaf ear. He stands in almost mute silence as the protesters in Tehran are murdered, beaten, and even raped.

Charles Krauthammer describes the Obama Iran policy this way: “Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that…is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side. And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued ‘dialogue’ with their clerical masters.”

The opposition in Iran has had little opportunity to keep fighting back because of the brutality of the regime. Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking Islamic mullah, reportedly said, “Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution.”

Those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were “at war with God” and should be “dealt with without mercy,” he said in a nationally televised sermon.

The Ayatollah’s call for merciless retribution for those who stirred up Iran’s largest wave of dissent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution came as the repression against the protesters has become sadistic and brutal.

Has America already forgotten the lessons Ronald Reagan taught us just over 20 years ago? Reagan, at the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, demanded that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev demolish the wall.

Against the advice of his nervous State Department advisers, Reagan in the shadow of the oppressors electrified Berliners by speaking truth: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to the gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Only two years after the speech, the wall did come down; the brutal East German Communist government and the Soviet communism came down with it. The Brandenburg Gate was re-opened just before Christmas on December 22, 1989 after being closed 28 arduous years.

History has recorded that the wall came down because President Reagan was resolute in his determination to see that communism wind up “on the ash heap of history.”

In Iran, Reagan would have reacted swiftly and with clear statements about the evil of oppression. A reaction that would stand in stark contrast to Obama’s policy of continued engagement with thugs even in the face of publicly witnessed brutality. Just this past weekend administration spokesman David Axelrod reiterated the position, saying, “We are going to continue working through…the multilateral group of nations that are engaging Iran.” They seem more concerned with befriending the thugs in power than speaking out with a clear voice against evil.

The unfolding of the horrific violence on the streets of Iran floods our minds with the memories of the bloodshed in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The protests, in the spring of 1989, were part of a conflict between the Chinese democracy movement and the Communist Party of China. When Tiananmen Square’s violence erupted, America spoke out with a united voice against the brutality.

Now, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress appear weak and fearful to speak out against the much weaker mullahs in Muslim Iran. The freedom seekers in Iran need to be defended the same way President Reagan stood with the Polish shipyard workers and other victims of communism behind the now-demolished Iron Curtain.

George Santayana admonished us: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Let’s not forget what history and Ronald Reagan taught us. Freedom depends on it.

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